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When are we gonna see the trade offs for Firebrands and Dragonhunters????


Bunny.9834

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Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

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@draxynnic.3719 said:Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

You know, Soulbeasts kept saying that their trade off was not having their pet out all the time and look at what happened :wink:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What would be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

But seriously, what would be a better trade off for FB would for Tomes to share the weapon swap CD, but once you use all your pages you go back to your last equipped weapon. DH might get a stat hit instead frankly.

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I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What would be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

I thought reaper shroud drains faster than your average shroud? I think that was added when they tweaked reaper a while back.

The core virtues vs tomes having a ‘cast time’ doesnt really seem like a drawback when ur getting 15 more skills that are more powerful than a plain ol’ single virtue. CDs on those tome skills are short too.

@FrownyClown.8402 said:Dh should lose their passive virtues. Fb should lose access to a 2nd weapon. Tomes count as a swap

Imagine the outrage when FBs cant swap weapons... even when it’s only in combat. The devs are too scared to touch their precious FBs that way lol. You’re proposal as making tomes count as weapon swaps makes a lot of sense tho, like ele elements.

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@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

You know, Soulbeasts kept saying that their trade off was not having their pet out all the time and look at what happened :wink:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What
would
be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

But seriously, what would be a better trade off for FB would for Tomes to share the weapon swap CD, but once you use all your pages you go back to your last equipped weapon. DH might get a stat hit instead frankly.

Soulbeasts can have their pets out the entire time if they chose to, tho. This is not really a trade off. Before the removal of pet swap, Soulbeast was simply an add on on top. You can have your pet out all the time just like the ranger, but you get the CHOICE to fuse with your pet additionally, if you desire to.

Therefore this is not really a trade off. You were not really giving up anything to get the additional option to fuse with your pet. Imagine a Reaper gets the Reaper shroud as an F2 skill instead of replacing the F1. If you use your life force for the Reaper shroud, then of course you won't have life force left to use the classic shroud as well. But you actually have the choice to use either, the reaper shroud or your classic shroud with the resources. It would be a flat upgrade. And Soulbeast has been exactly like this, they were not giving up anything before, they just got another option added.

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It will be difficult to properly adjust the profession tradeoff in the case of guardian because the base virtues just feel so... lackluster?

Firebrand gets tons of new skills, and balancing those 15 profession skills versus 3 base virtues seems impossible. I was thinking, what if firebrand just loses all virtues, has to select ONE tome to use in combat (like how revenant picks legends), have this tome behave like an engineer kit (ie: you can swap in/out at will without CD), and have the page count work on an ammo system mechanic? Then CDs can be adjusted, and a firebrand will have 5 profession skills available in combat rather than 15, which would be easier to balance again.

As for DH, they could modify the passive side of the virtues, or increase their application time, so in a way activating virtues is stronger un DH, whereas keeping them passive is stronger for core guardian.

Just some ideas.

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@Kodama.6453 said:

@"draxynnic.3719" said:Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

You know, Soulbeasts kept saying that their trade off was not having their pet out all the time and look at what happened :wink:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What
would
be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

But seriously, what would be a better trade off for FB would for Tomes to share the weapon swap CD, but once you use all your pages you go back to your last equipped weapon. DH might get a stat hit instead frankly.

Soulbeasts can have their pets out the entire time if they chose to, tho. This is not really a trade off. Before the removal of pet swap, Soulbeast was simply an add on on top. You can have your pet out all the time just like the ranger, but you get the CHOICE to fuse with your pet additionally, if you desire to.

Therefore this is not really a trade off. You were not really giving up anything to get the additional option to fuse with your pet. Imagine a Reaper gets the Reaper shroud as an F2 skill instead of replacing the F1. If you use your life force for the Reaper shroud, then of course you won't have life force left to use the classic shroud as well. But you actually have the choice to use either, the reaper shroud or your classic shroud with the resources. It would be a flat upgrade. And Soulbeast has been exactly like this, they were not giving up anything before, they just got another option added.

Bingo. Just as berserker could always just choose not to use berserk mode and just use regular adrenaline burst skills... well, until it couldn't. Dragonhunter and firebrand never could choose to use the core virtues - they were outright replaced.

That's pretty much how it's been with all the tradeoffs. It's about there being something that the core version of the profession can do that the elite specialisation couldn't. Berserker, herald, renegade, scrapper, druid, soulbeast, daredevil, tempest, chronomancer - in each of those cases, there was really nothing that the core profession could do that the elite specialisation couldn't, apart from being able to have three core traitlines. Note the exceptions there - Spellbreaker lost the ability to use more than one bar of adrenaline at a time, Deadeye had Steal reworked, Weaver has a global cooldown on attunement swapping. These don't need a tradeoff because there was one built into the elite specialisation from the beginning.

Meanwhile, berserker has lost regular adrenaline burst skills. Scrapper lost the F5 toolbelt. Druid lost some damage on pets. Soulbeast lost petswap. Daredevil had Steal swapped with Swipe - a sidegrade more than anything else. Revenant had something added to core.

Reaper lost the more ranged-oriented Death Shroud in exchange for the melee-oriented Reaper Shroud. Dragonhunter lost instant-activation virtues for the more "physical" dragonhunter virtues -which, yes, are more powerful, but which take time to activate (time that you're not spending doing something else) and can be interrupted.

These are the tradeoffs. Whether some of the options are better than others is a separate balance consideration.

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@Kodama.6453 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

You know, Soulbeasts kept saying that their trade off was not having their pet out all the time and look at what happened :wink:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What
would
be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

But seriously, what would be a better trade off for FB would for Tomes to share the weapon swap CD, but once you use all your pages you go back to your last equipped weapon. DH might get a stat hit instead frankly.

Soulbeasts can have their pets out the entire time if they chose to, tho. This is not really a trade off. Before the removal of pet swap, Soulbeast was simply an add on on top. You can have your pet out all the time just like the ranger, but you get the CHOICE to fuse with your pet additionally, if you desire to.

Therefore this is not really a trade off. You were not really giving up anything to get the additional option to fuse with your pet. Imagine a Reaper gets the Reaper shroud as an F2 skill instead of replacing the F1. If you use your life force for the Reaper shroud, then of course you won't have life force left to use the classic shroud as well. But you actually have the choice to use either, the reaper shroud or your classic shroud with the resources. It would be a flat upgrade. And Soulbeast has been exactly like this, they were not giving up anything before, they just got another option added.

That was my point. It wasn't a trade off, but they kept trying to insist that it was when it was just a straight upgrade. DH Virtues and FB Tomes are straight upgrades.

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@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

You know, Soulbeasts kept saying that their trade off was not having their pet out all the time and look at what happened :wink:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What
would
be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

But seriously, what would be a better trade off for FB would for Tomes to share the weapon swap CD, but once you use all your pages you go back to your last equipped weapon. DH might get a stat hit instead frankly.

Soulbeasts can have their pets out the entire time if they chose to, tho. This is not really a trade off. Before the removal of pet swap, Soulbeast was simply an add on on top. You can have your pet out all the time just like the ranger, but you get the CHOICE to fuse with your pet additionally, if you desire to.

Therefore this is not really a trade off. You were not really giving up anything to get the additional option to fuse with your pet. Imagine a Reaper gets the Reaper shroud as an F2 skill instead of replacing the F1. If you use your life force for the Reaper shroud, then of course you won't have life force left to use the classic shroud as well. But you actually have the choice to use either, the reaper shroud or your classic shroud with the resources. It would be a flat upgrade. And Soulbeast has been exactly like this, they were not giving up anything before, they just got another option added.

That was my point. It wasn't a trade off, but they kept trying to insist that it was when it was just a straight upgrade. DH Virtues and FB Tomes are straight upgrades.

Not really. They're more powerful than the core virtues, yes, but they require more time investment. Dragonhunter virtues are full skills with animations that prevent you from using another skill at the same time and can be interrupted, and usually go on full cooldown when they do - naturally, they're going to be more powerful when they do trigger, to account for teh risk of interruption and that you're not performing another skill while you do it. Tomes have an even stronger effect, but over a longer period of time, and two of them almost lock you out of offensive actions altogether while they're in effect.

There's a sliding scale from a relatively low effect with zero time investment, through a moderate to strong effect with a similar time investment to most skills, to a sustained effect that replaced your weapon for as long as it lasts.

Instant activation is not to be scoffed at. A lot of the current balance pass was all about toning down instant activations for a reason. Core guardian virtues aren't going to spike someone down, but with the right traits you can get a lot of mileage out of core virtues (as just one example, Indomitable Courage works better with core Virtue of Courage, since there's no chance of it being interrupted before the Stability triggers, and if can be fired to cover another skill or to cover a stomp), and if you really need a panic button you can chain through all three of them as quickly as you can press the buttons if you need to.

Now, I haven't played the recent patch much, but in the previous meta, a well-played core guardian could be just as dangerous as a well-played dragonhunter, and a darn sight less predictable (you know what to expect when you see a DH on the enemy team - when you see a core guardian, there are a couple of approaches they could be taking). Firebrands were pretty dominant, although it's unclear how much of that was simply that it's advantageous to have a support and Firebrand was the best support - nevertheless, while everyone's damage and nearly everyone's healing got reduced in the latest patch, firebrand had its numbers pared down more than the average. However, when scourge was dominant, ArenaNet didn't go looking for tradeoffs because scourge already had a tradeoff. So do the guardian elite specialisations. You could make the argument that they're getting more than they're giving up, but there is something they're giving up, so when it comes to intra-profession balancing the tradeoff is already there, it's just a matter of adjusting the numbers so that they're all reasonably equally attractive options rather than having a clear standout.

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@draxynnic.3719 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:Guardian elite specs have always had a tradeoff - they lose the instant activation base virtues. Sure, that might not seem like a great loss, but there have certainly been times where I've felt having the basic virtue would have served better than a DH virtue, and sometimes even than a tome. If the base virtues aren't good enough and the elite spec replacements are too good, that's a general balancing issue, not a tradeoff issue. And we did just see substantial nerfs to tomes in competitive - nerfs which seem to be heavier than the baseline nerfs to damage and healing.

A similar observation applies for necromancer: the tradeoff for playing a reaper or scourge is that you lose access to the core death shroud.

It's worth keeping in mind that the tradeoffs, broadly speaking, aren't intended to be flat nerfs so much as giving you some incentive to go back to the core profession. Daredevil's Swipe, for instance, is intended as a sidegrade... but if you really want the longer range, it's an incentive to play core Thief. Now, I think they were heavy-handed with Mirage, but it might also only be temporary until they can come up with a tradeoff (which, again, might be a sidegrade rather than an out-and-out nerf) that can be applied in PvE as well.

You know, Soulbeasts kept saying that their trade off was not having their pet out all the time and look at what happened :wink:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What
would
be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

But seriously, what would be a better trade off for FB would for Tomes to share the weapon swap CD, but once you use all your pages you go back to your last equipped weapon. DH might get a stat hit instead frankly.

Soulbeasts can have their pets out the entire time if they chose to, tho. This is not really a trade off. Before the removal of pet swap, Soulbeast was simply an add on on top. You can have your pet out all the time just like the ranger, but you get the CHOICE to fuse with your pet additionally, if you desire to.

Therefore this is not really a trade off. You were not really giving up anything to get the additional option to fuse with your pet. Imagine a Reaper gets the Reaper shroud as an F2 skill instead of replacing the F1. If you use your life force for the Reaper shroud, then of course you won't have life force left to use the classic shroud as well. But you actually have the choice to use either, the reaper shroud or your classic shroud with the resources. It would be a flat upgrade. And Soulbeast has been exactly like this, they were not giving up anything before, they just got another option added.

That was my point. It wasn't a trade off, but they kept trying to insist that it was when it was just a straight upgrade. DH Virtues and FB Tomes are straight upgrades.

Not really. They're more
powerful
than the core virtues, yes, but they require more time investment. Dragonhunter virtues are full skills with animations that prevent you from using another skill at the same time and can be interrupted, and usually go on full cooldown when they do - naturally, they're going to be more powerful when they do trigger, to account for teh risk of interruption and that you're not performing another skill while you do it. Tomes have an even stronger effect, but over a longer period of time, and two of them almost lock you out of offensive actions altogether while they're in effect.

There's a sliding scale from a relatively low effect with zero time investment, through a moderate to strong effect with a similar time investment to most skills, to a sustained effect that replaced your weapon for as long as it lasts.

Instant activation is not to be scoffed at. A lot of the current balance pass was all about toning down instant activations
for a reason.
Core guardian virtues aren't going to spike someone down, but with the right traits you can get a lot of mileage out of core virtues (as just one example, Indomitable Courage works better with core Virtue of Courage, since there's no chance of it being interrupted before the Stability triggers, and if can be fired to cover another skill or to cover a stomp), and if you really need a panic button you can chain through all three of them as quickly as you can press the buttons if you need to.

Now, I haven't played the recent patch much, but in the previous meta, a well-played core guardian could be just as dangerous as a well-played dragonhunter, and a darn sight less predictable (you know what to expect when you see a DH on the enemy team - when you see a core guardian, there are a couple of approaches they could be taking). Firebrands were pretty dominant, although it's unclear how much of that was simply that it's advantageous to have a support and Firebrand was the best support - nevertheless, while everyone's damage and nearly everyone's healing got reduced in the latest patch, firebrand had its numbers pared down more than the average. However, when scourge was dominant, ArenaNet didn't go looking for tradeoffs because scourge already
had
a tradeoff. So do the guardian elite specialisations.
You could make the argument that they're getting more than they're giving up, but there
is
something they're giving up, so when it comes to intra-profession balancing the tradeoff is already there, it's just a matter of adjusting the numbers so that they're all reasonably equally attractive options rather than having a clear standout.

And we've circled back to this, which is the very argument that soulbeasts were trying to make with their pets prior to the real trade off being imposed on them. I agree that Spellbreaker and Scourge had distinct tradeoffs at the time of creation, but FB and DH need more. No body wants a trade off for their profession. Dwayna knows I want core F1 back on Berserker and the toughness penalty gone. as an aside old Berserker had a 'tradeoff' in that it lost Core F1s while in Berserk mode, and that wasn't considered enough by Anet now was it? What ever it is you feel is the current trade off for FB and DH, it is not enough relative to what is gained, as was the case for Berserker, Druid, Scrapper, or Soulbeast (and they got off light tbh).

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@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:IMO, Core Guardian should get the Core Revenant treatment and add an F4 and maybe an F5 that DH and FB don’t get. Otherwise, I’m not sure how you could feasible fit in a trade off.

I mentioned one option up above. I feel like a physical damage based virtue that also provided some offensive boon would fit in well. Although I think only one extra virtue is needed in that case, make it exclusive to core, and make it strong.

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By equipping the Firebrand traitline you automatically lose your Core Virtues.

By equipping Soulbeast you DID NOT automatically lose your pet and by equipping old Berserker you did not automatically lose your core F1 burst skill. The comparisons you are trying to push over us makes absolutely zero sense. It is like saying having access to Celestial Avatar in druid is a trade off because when you pop it you lose your weapon skills. You can always CHOOSE to not pop it.

There is also a reason why you never saw full glass DH or FB like you saw old Core Guardian. That build requires a kind of fast gameplay which you cannot have without instant cast virtues.

Try playing Firebrand with a full meditations or similar high mobility burst setup like old core guardian had and come back here tell me there is no tradeoff.

You won't, because it doesn't work.

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@DragonSlayer.1087 said:

I try to play everything, mostly to know what I'm talking about. Reaper Shroud absolutely does not feel like a trade off and a straight upgrade. Ditto with DH virtues and Tomes. What
would
be a true trade off? Given Anet's solutions the options typically include stat reductions, increased CD's, or adding something to the Core class.

Would a 4th virtue be cool? Sure! Make it strong, something like an AoE power based attack on active, but on passive grants 1 stack of might (5s) every fifth attack for 10 targets, 2 stacks if traited.

I thought reaper shroud drains faster than your average shroud? I think that was added when they tweaked reaper a while back.

As a long time necro main let me make it clear:The main point here is that it's not an equal trade (off).Reaper shroud is a massive upgrade for a slight annoyance in terms of LF drained.

Reaper shroud's damage is the best in slot for necro, while core shroud is bottom of barrel.Reaper shroud skills greatly synergize with eachother and traits (powerful and safe stab-shielded transfusion or dhuumfire).Reaper skills are fast and responsive, only exception being #5, but since it's a massive cc it's justified. On core everything feels slow.Reaper shroud does more things better - cleave, combo field, leap finisher, damage reduction, quickness, two cc, huge burst.

Core necro goes into shroud to take a beating or if he really, really reaaalllly needs a sucky long range attack option.Reaper goes into shroud to actually get things done and unlike core this is his prime time where damage spikes, stab gets popped and he can do a ton of cool stuff.

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FB is in desperate need of trade off, HOWEVER, restricting to 1 tome only i don't think is the answer. Nor is removing the weapon swap - that would be fine for dps firebrand (maybe even not heavy handed enough), but would be a huge hit to support builds (in PvE anyway).

First of all, i think loremaster (virtues retain passives on cd, reduce tome cd) should just be a trait FB's either have ingrained into the spec, or replace it with a different trait entirely. Loremaster is VERY strong compared to the other traits in that slot, but if it was either gone OR mandatory then you can balance FB eitherway to account for it, there is basically no other trait choices because of how significant loremaster is.Perhaps, replace swift scholar with loremaster (but only have the retain passives part of it, ditch the tome cd reduction). Using a tome puts all tomes on a global coolown worth a given % of their original cd, and the trait replacing loremaster for choice slot shortens the global cd %.Note that i consider loremaster important here, because like mirage and IH, the class is just completely different without it (and incase ur wondering i support IH being a given for all mirages too). In fact, just removing the loremaster trait only could be an effective trade off: you get tome skills, but using them means having no passives.

As for DH, it's a weird one. It's virtues definitely are a straight up upgrade, no longer being instant cast is barely a drawback at all, in fact, the only real trade off is having to take the DH traitline which even is a real thing for some raid speedrun compositions. I'm not sure what an effective and thematic trade off would be though.

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If you take a look at WvW. They nerfed the hell out of the Dh, u cannot even play with traps or even with the bow, cause the are dealing in comparison zero dmg. or cc. Btw the animations were before the chance quite obivous too and now it's even worse. They should do something about the upcoming condirev spam or perma stun and and interrupting spellbreakers or the nearly uneffected thief's. But heeey let's nerf the last really competetive power build and buff the cancer.

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@Genesis.5169 said:

@FrownyClown.8402 said:Dh should lose their passive virtues. Fb should lose access to a 2nd weapon. Tomes count as a swap

Your gonna make every guardian quit the game..this is gonna hurt pvp more then help it.All mesmer players most likely quit, which was their intention from the start. Now do the same with guard ! (followed with necro/rev) :D

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